Car Camping - Coolah Tops

Scary storm (pic. A Larsen)

Time to "Go Bush"

Nothing to report from this weekend, but last weekend I took the Friday and Monday off and headed to Coolah Tops NP for a spot of car camping with Allan, Jarrod and Leon. The beauty of car camping is that you don't need to carry anything so you can take all the luxuries like chairs, pillows and beer. Coolah Tops is about 450 km north-west of Sydney on the western edge of the Dividing Range. The drive took us over the Blue Mountains then north through the farmland and vineyards round Mudgee and up into the park. Its fairly nice bush with quite an open understorey and lots of white Snowgums.

The farmland on the way proved better for birdwatching

We went for even more luxury by hiring an old bushmans hut which only set us back 20 bucks (8 pounds) a night. It didn't have power or water or anything but was a dry place to stash our gear and was actually quite cosy in the evenings with candles and a log fire going.

The hut - very cosy in the evenings

All the luxuries

I actually camped out on the veranda but was quite happy to have the hut one night when there was a quite substantial thunder storm. The whole park was also teeming with flies so a place to escape them was essential.

Escaping the flies

Dawn

We spent the days bushwalking including one adventurous trek along the side of a large cliff in search of a cave full of bats. This involved a bit of scrambling which didn't bother my comrades too much but had me a little on edge. We found the cave eventually but it didn't contain any bats. It was just full of years and years worth of goat poo!

Dodgy cave walk